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The Engadget Global Score is a unique ranking of products based on extensive independent research and analysis by our expert editorial and research teams. The Global Score is arrived at only after curating hundreds, sometimes thousands of weighted data points (such as critic and user reviews).

Surprise: the iPad Air is the best iPad we've reviewed. In addition, though, it's also the most comfortable 10-inch tablet we've ever tested. Not every manufacturer can produce a thin and light device without also making it feel cheap or flimsy, but Apple nailed it.

Functionally, the iPad Air is nearly identical to last year’s model, offering only faster performance and better video chatting. But factor in design and aesthetics, and the iPad Air is on another planet. It’s the best full-size consumer tablet on the market.

The iPad Air makes the argument anew that there’s still room for big tablets in people’s lives, and it might just help usher in an era of computing where households own more than one kind of iPad, and PCs are harder and harder to find.

The iPad Air is a marvel of technology. It's thinner, lighter, and better than any tablet of its size. More importantly, it shows that the iPad is capable of improving more than just its guts. It just happens to come at a time when you've never had more choices...

The iPad Air is still an iPad, but it’s lighter and thinner and twice as fast to boot. If you want a tablet you can comfortably hold with one hand, look elsewhere. Otherwise, look no further than the iPad Air.

It’s lighter, more portable, more usable and faster than any previous iPad. It doesn’t fundamentally change what you can do with a tablet, but if you’re in the market for one the iPad Air really is the best iPad to date.

The iPad Air features an impressively slender form factor and ... it still manages to perform twice as fast and deliver just as much battery life as its predecessor. In fact, Apple’s latest tablet, as it exists, is definitely one of the best (if not the best) tablet out there right now.

Yes, it’s true, the iPad Air is essentially a larger iPad Mini Retina. For some, that’s a disappointment. For me, the new iPad Air is close to everything a consumer tablet should be: Light, fast, fun, beautiful and a little bit like the future.

Designwise, this iPad is so much svelter that it almost feels like a new class of Apple tablet, but it remains an iPad — and for now, at least, that continues to be the most important bragging right that any tablet can claim.

This is the best full-size tablet on the market today, and it easily trumps all of Apple's previous efforts to date. Anyone in the market for a tablet can buy an iPad Air with confidence. This is the new standard.

The iPad Air is the best overall 10-inch tablet you can buy by quite a margin. The huge weight reduction makes the larger of the two iPads a far more attractive option again, while retaining all the iPads traditional strengths such as its unrivalled collection of tablet optimised apps.

We’ve come to appreciate all the things that come along with the iPad Air, but as a whole, it doesn't necessarily offer tremendous amounts of innovation outside of its industry-leading design and A7 chipset.

Critics of Apple often say that the company merely makes incremental upgrades and then repackages them as something new to sell to their naive followers. Even Apple's staunchest critics couldn't reasonably say that about the iPad Air.

In other words, your existing iPad can pretty much do everything that the iPad Air can do. That said, if you're new to iPad or are in the market to buy a tablet anyway, I expect you'll be more than thrilled with an Air.

First Looks

And while Apple's done an impressive job slimming the tablet down and taking off nearly half a pound, it doesn't feel cheap -- it's an Apple product, after all ... What's really notable here, however, is just how zippy things are, thanks to the inclusion of the A7 chip.

The weight makes it much easier to hold with one hand, and the pared-down bezel makes the screen absolutely pop. Our first impression: the Ipad Air is like the iPhone 5S of iPads: refined, reduced, and overall improved.

Thanks to its much narrower bezels, we had no problem navigating the device as we held the tablet in one hand ... On the inside, the iPad Air features an A7 processor that proved snappy when we were opening and closing apps, as well as playing a quick round of Infinity Blade 3.

In our hands-on tests this difference in weight was marked, and made for a hugely different experience. Users who may have wanted a lighter tablet, but didn’t want to sacrifice screen real-estate to move to an iPad mini will probably be pleased.

The Air's weight is its killer app. You can't see this. You have to feel it. At just 1 pound, it comes very close to the tablet ideal of a magical sheet of paper: thin, durable, easy to hold in one hand or two for as long as you want.

Overall the device is slimmer and slightly smaller as well. I noticed the thinness — about a 20 percent reduction — more than the minimal size difference of the device. The smaller bezel takes its cue from the iPad mini and there’s still plenty of room for my thumbs.

The iPad Air doesn't completely swing things back in the other direction for me, but the reduced size and weight combined with the 4:3 screen ratio (which I still think is more sensible in a 10-inch tablet than a widescreen ratio) makes the iPad Air the most comfortable large-screened tablet.

The slimmed down bezels on the sides make a considerable difference to how it feels in your hand, leaving the tablet as a whole feeling somewhere in-between the 4:3 aspect of its display and the 16:9 of most rival Android slates.

The main difference is that the bezel on the sides (when held in portrait) have been reduced to nearly nothing ... makes a big difference, in terms of the physical device in your hands, more so than we expected, and combined with a processor boost completes a very nice package.

In short then, does the new iPad Air look good? It does. The design alone is a welcome upgrade, and it can't be overstated how much difference it makes to feel a 10-inch iPad not weigh as much as a bear.

Apple’s newest iteration of its full-sized, 9.7-inch tablet, the iPad Air, is noticeably lighter and thinner than its predecessor — making it more comfortable to hold the tablet with one hand while using it.

The device is well named. It's hard to explain, but you feel it when you pick one up. For the first time, you can comfortably hold a full-sized iPad in one hand with no strain whatsoever. It's also 20% slimmer, but I found you just don't sense that unless you look at the side.

The main difference is its design. With a paper-thin chassis and weighing less than the original iPad Mini, it's a design marvel. The Retina screen remains one of the best screens on a tablet and this is now boosted by a blisteringly fast processor.

At just 1 pound, the iPad Air is noticeably lighter than its predecessors, and the thinner bezel help accentuate the fact that the new tablet is an all-around smaller machine. It still bears the same quality build that Apple is known for, just in a more compact package.

Pick it up, though, and you'll be shocked - this is a completely different device. You feel every gram of weight lost from the old model, and at 20% thinner it's much more comfortable in the hand ... a device you'll want to take with you everywhere and not just leave lying on the coffee table.